◄ Psalm 38:20 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Sin Stinging Like An Adder
Psalm 38:1-22
C. Clemance
This has been called one of the penitential psalms. It may be called so without any severe strain of language; and yet its penitential tone is very far removed from that of either the thirty-second or the fifty-first psalm. There is little doubt that there is a sincere acknowledgment of the sin; but here the main stress of the grief seems to be attributable rather to the suffering consequent upon the sin, than to the guilt of the sin itself. And we cannot resist the conviction that an undue reticence (which, alas! often results in an infrequent and inadequate warning against sins of the flesh) has somewhat warped and fettered the remarks of many expositors. For the physical suffering which is here detailed with distressing precision, points to sin as the cause thereof - to that sin which is one of the seriously poisoning influences in our social fabric, and against which no pleadings can be too tender, and no warnings can be too loud. Let us first study the case, and then utilize it.

I. THE CASE STATED. Even before entering into detail, it is obvious that the case is one of intense suffering. The details, however, will show us but too clearly what the suffering was, and how it was accounted for.

1. There had been the commission of sin. Vers. 3-5 give us three terms - "sin," "foolishness," "iniquity. The sin was one which brought about a great deal of:

2. Bodily disorder. Note the following expressions:

(1) My flesh" (ver. 3).

(2) "My bones" (ver. 3).

(3) "My loins" (ver. 7).

(4) "No soundness" (ver. 3).

(5) "No health" (ver. 3).

(6) "Wounds" (ver. 5).

(7) "Ulcers" (ver. 5, Hebrew).

(8) "Offensive" (ver. 5).

(9) "Burning" (ver. 7).

(10) This alternating with deathly coldness (ver. 8).

(11) "Palpitation" (ver. 10).

(12) The frame bent and bowed with the suffering (ver. 6).

(13) "Failing strength" (ver. 10).

(14) "Dimness of sight" (ver. 10).

Surely this puts before us, in no obscure fashion, the terrible physical woe which the writer was enduring.

3. (treat mental anguish.

(1) God's arrows struck very deeply into his soul (ver. 2).

(2) God's hand pressed heavily upon him (ver. 2).

(3) He went abroad as a mourner ver. 6).

(4) He roared - groaned aloud - all the day long.

It may not be always possible to affirm that such and such suffering is the effect of this or that specific sin. But sometimes we can. And it is no wonder if sins of the flesh bring fleshly suffering. It is an ordained law of God that it should be so. Hence the sufferings are rightly regarded as "the arrows of God."

4. In his trouble, lovers and friends stand aloof from him. Even neighbours and kinsmen drew themselves afar off (ver. 11). Earthly friends are like swallows, who come near in fine weather, and fly away ere the weather turns foul.

5. He was laden with reproach, and even beset with snares. (Ver. 12.)

6. He did not and could not reply. To the charges laid at his door he had no justifications to offer, and therefore said nothing (cf. ver. 14, Hebrew). This was so far wise.

7. Though silent to man, he pours out his heart to God. He calls God his God; even though guilt lies heavily on the soul.

(1) He declares the whole case before the mercy-seat (ver. 9).

(2) He confesses the sin (ver. 18).

(3) He deprecates the Divine displeasure (ver. 1).

(4) He appeals for help (ver. 22).

Note: There is a great difference between men who "are overtaken in a fault," and those whose life is one perpetual sin of alienation from God. David lived in an age when lustfulness was scarcely recognized as wrong at all, save where the holy Law of God had gleamed on it with the searching light of Heaven. If David fell into this sin, it was because he was injured by the low conventional standard of his day. If he regarded it as sin, and mourned over it, it was because he was under the educating influence of that Word which was as "a lamp to his feet, and a light unto his path."

8. While David moans his sin as threatening him with destruction and ruin, he looks for salvation in God and God alone. (Ver. 22.) "O Lord my Salvation."

II. THE CASE UTILIZED. Here is evidently a psalm which is one of a number that contain a rehearsal of the writer's private experience. They profess to be that, and therefore, unless some good reason to the contrary is shown, we rightly assume that they are that. The expositor who desires to deal faithfully with all the psalms, and with the whole of each psalm, will often find himself between two opposite schools. On one side, there are those who would enclose every psalm within the limits of a naturalistic psychology; while there are others who seem to regard every psalm as referring directly or indirectly to Christ. But while the second and forty-fifth psalm. can by no means be accounted for by a rationalistic psychology, so this thirty-eighth psalm can by no means be applied to the Messiah directly or indirectly. Let us not select facts to fit a theory; but study all the facts, and frame the theory accordingly. In this personal moan and groan we have:

1. Suffering following on sin. Of what kind the sin was there can be little question. And if we wonder that David could fall into such sin, we may well ask - What can be expected of a man who had six wives (2 Samuel 3:2-5)? The Law of God might, indeed, be the rule of his life, but he was injured and corrupted by falling into the conventionalisms of his day; and hence in his private life he came far short of his own professed ideal. Is not the like incongruity between the ideal and the actual often seen even now?

2. If it was owing to "conformity to the world that David thus sinned, it was because he had before him God's revelation of the evil of sin that he was so bowed down under a sense of the guilt thereof. The revealed Law of God stood high above the level to which he had attained; hence a shame and self-loathing on account of sin, which would nowhere else have been known.

3. Smarting under the sense of guilt, David yet tells God all. He knew God to be one pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin;" and hence the burdens of sin and guilt, as well as of care, were laid before the mercy-seat (Psalm 32:5).

4. At times, however, words fail; then the desire and the groaning are perfectly understood. (Ver. 9.) Who does not understand something of this that knows anything of the "energies of prayer"? There are "groanings which cannot be uttered." As there are "songs without words," so are there "prayers without words." For the grief consequent upon sin may be, and often is, aggravated by the desertion of those friends who will smile on us when we are prosperous, and will turn their backs on us when adversity comes. But, even so, it is an infinite mercy to be shut up to God, and to let the heart lie "naked and opened" before One who will never misunderstand, and who will never forsake us.

5. For our God is "Jehovah our Salvation. That is his revealed name, and to it he will ever be true. See how gloriously the sure mercies of David" are set forth in Psalm 89:26-33. God is "a just God, and a Saviour" (Isaiah 45:21). Hence we should never let our consciousness of guilt drive us from him; rather should it always make us "flee unto" him "to hide us."

6. Hence only those who have the light of God's revelation can possibly have any gospel for men smarting under the guilt of sin. We do not know any one passage in Scripture in which the combination is more remarkable of a man whose sin has brought deepest shame and agony upon him, and who yet is laying hold of God under that beautiful, that matchless name, "my Salvation" (ver. 22). Very often, indeed, the word "salvation" in the Old Testament means mainly, if not exclusively, temporal deliverance. Here, at any rate, it cannot be so limited; for the salvation required to meet the case of woe thus laid before God must be one which includes cancelling guilt, purifying from corruption, and healing disease. And that revelation of God as our Salvation which was made in germ to the Hebrews, is disclosed more fully to us under Christ. He is "made wisdom from God unto us, even righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; that (according as it is written) he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:30, 31). In the very volume where sin is dealt with most seriously, it is also treated most hopefully; and the very revelation which cries with trumpet-power, "All have sinned," also cries, "Look unto me, and be ye saved." - C.

Biblical Illustrator
For Thine arrows stick fast in me, and Thy hand presseth me sore.
Psalm 38:2
God's arrows
A. Symson.
Those arrows commonly are either wicked men or devils, whom God sendeth forth to afflict His own children, sharp as arrows, light and swift as arrows, and ready to do harm to God's saints; or else sickness, poverty, infamy, and such other afflictions, whereby our most gracious Father thinketh most fit to subdue our vile corruption: all which, albeit in their own nature they are evil, yet God can convert and turn them to the utility and profit of His own children. As a physician can use the most poisionable and venomous herbs to cure the most desperate diseases; yea, the flesh of the dead serpent, to cure the wound gotten by the living serpent: so God can convert and turn the mischievous machinations of our enemies to our salvation.

(A. Symson.)

People
David, Jeduthun, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Accuse, Adversaries, Evil, Follow, Haters, Oppose, Paying, Pursue, Pursuing, Render, Repay, Slander
Outline
1. David moves God to take compassion on his pitiful case

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 38:20

     5346   injury

Psalm 38:1-22

     5888   inferiority

Psalm 38:19-20

     5951   slander

Library
"Come unto Me, all Ye that Labour, and are Wearied," &C.
Matth. xi. 28.--"Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are wearied," &c. It is the great misery of Christians in this life, that they have such poor, narrow, and limited spirits, that are not fit to receive the truth of the gospel in its full comprehension; from whence manifold misapprehensions in judgment, and stumbling in practice proceed. The beauty and life of things consist in their entire union with one another, and in the conjunction of all their parts. Therefore it would not be a fit way …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Question Lxxxii of Devotion
I. Is Devotion a Special Kind of Act? Cardinal Cajetan, On the Meaning of the Term "Devotion" S. Augustine, Confessions, XIII. viii. 2 II. Is Devotion an Act of the Virtue of Religion? III. Is Contemplation, that is Meditation, the Cause of Devotion? Cardinal Cajetan, On the Causes of Devotion " " On the Devotion of Women IV. Is Joy an Effect of Devotion? Cardinal Cajetan, On Melancholy S. Augustine, Confessions, II. x. I Is Devotion a Special Kind of Act? It is by our acts that we merit. But …
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

Out of the Deep of Suffering and Sorrow.
Save me, O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul: I am come into deep waters; so that the floods run over me.--Ps. lxix. 1, 2. I am brought into so great trouble and misery: that I go mourning all the day long.--Ps. xxxviii. 6. The sorrows of my heart are enlarged: Oh! bring Thou me out of my distress.--Ps. xxv. 17. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping: the Lord will receive my prayer.--Ps. vi. 8. In the multitude of the sorrows which I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep

Christ's Resurrection Song.
WHEN the blessed Lord appeared in the midst of His disciples and they beheld the risen One in His glorified body of flesh and bones and He ate before them, He told them that all things which were written in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning Him, had to be fulfilled (Luke xxiv:44). While on the way to Emmaus He said to the two sorrowing and perplexed disciples "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all …
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

The Acceptable Sacrifice;
OR, THE EXCELLENCY OF A BROKEN HEART: SHOWING THE NATURE, SIGNS, AND PROPER EFFECTS OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT. BEING THE LAST WORKS OF THAT EMINENT PREACHER AND FAITHFUL MINISTER OF JESUS CHRIST, MR. JOHN BUNYAN, OF BEDFORD. WITH A PREFACE PREFIXED THEREUNTO BY AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN LONDON. London: Sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgates, 1692. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. The very excellent preface to this treatise, written by George Cokayn, will inform the reader of …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Question Lxxxiii of Prayer
I. Is Prayer an Act of the Appetitive Powers? Cardinal Cajetan, On Prayer based on Friendship II. Is it Fitting to Pray? Cardinal Cajetan, On Prayer as a True Cause S. Augustine, On the Sermon on the Mount, II. iii. 14 " On the Gift of Perseverance, vii. 15 III. Is Prayer an Act of the Virtue of Religion? Cardinal Cajetan, On the Humility of Prayer S. Augustine, On Psalm cii. 10 " Of the Gift of Perseverance, xvi. 39 IV. Ought We to Pray to God Alone? S. Augustine, Sermon, cxxvii. 2 V. …
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

His Past Work.
His past work was accomplished by Him when he became incarnate. It was finished when He died on Calvary's cross. We have therefore to consider first of all these fundamentals of our faith. I. The Work of the Son of God is foreshadowed and predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures. II. The incarnation of the Son of God. III. His Work on the cross and what has been accomplished by it. I. Through the Old Testament Scriptures, God announced beforehand the work of His Son. This is a great theme and one …
A. C. Gaebelein—The Work Of Christ

What Manner of Man Ought not to Come to Rule.
Wherefore let every one measure himself wisely, lest he venture to assume a place of rule, while in himself vice still reigns unto condemnation; lest one whom his own guilt depraves desire to become an intercessor for the faults of others. For on this account it is said to Moses by the supernal voice, Speak unto Aaron; Whosoever he be of thy seed throughout their generations that hath a blemish, he shall not offer loaves of bread to the Lord his God (Lev. xxi. 17). And it is also immediately subjoined; …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Third Sunday after Trinity Humility, Trust, Watchfulness, Suffering
Text: 1 Peter 5, 5-11. 5 Likewise, ye younger, be subject unto the elder. Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. 6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time; 7 casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you. 8 Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 whom withstand stedfast …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Cæsarius of Arles.
He was born in the district of Chalons-sur-Saone, A. D. 470. He seems to have been early awakened, by a pious education, to vital Christianity. When he was between seven and eight years old, it would often happen that he would give a portion of his clothes to the poor whom he met, and would say, when he came home, that he had been, constrained to do so. When yet a youth, he entered the celebrated convent on the island of Lerins, (Lerina,) in Provence, from which a spirit of deep and practical piety …
Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places

Christian Meekness
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth Matthew 5:5 We are now got to the third step leading in the way to blessedness, Christian meekness. Blessed are the meek'. See how the Spirit of God adorns the hidden man of the heart, with multiplicity of graces! The workmanship of the Holy Ghost is not only curious, but various. It makes the heart meek, pure, peaceable etc. The graces therefore are compared to needlework, which is different and various in its flowers and colours (Psalm 45:14). …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Notes on the Third Century
Page 161. Line 1. He must be born again, &c. This is a compound citation from John iii. 3, and Mark x. 15, in the order named. Page 182. Line 17. For all things should work together, &c. See Romans viii. 28. Page 184. Lines 10-11. Being Satan is able, &c. 2 Corinthians xi. 14. Page 184. Last line. Like a sparrow, &c. Psalm cii. Page 187. Line 1. Mechanisms. This word is, in the original MS., mechanicismes.' Page 187. Line 7. Like the King's daughter, &c. Psalm xlv. 14. Page 188. Med. 39. The best …
Thomas Traherne—Centuries of Meditations

How is Christ, as the Life, to be Applied by a Soul that Misseth God's Favour and Countenance.
The sixth case, that we shall speak a little to, is a deadness, occasioned by the Lord's hiding of himself, who is their life, and "the fountain of life," Ps. xxxvi. 9, and "whose loving-kindness is better than life," Ps. lxiii. 3, and "in whose favour is their life," Ps. xxx. 5. A case, which the frequent complaints of the saints manifest to be rife enough, concerning which we shall, 1. Shew some of the consequences of the Lord's hiding his face, whereby the soul's case will appear. 2. Shew the …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

I Will Pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding Also-
OR, A DISCOURSE TOUCHING PRAYER; WHEREIN IS BRIEFLY DISCOVERED, 1. WHAT PRAYER IS. 2. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT. 3. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT AND WITH THE UNDERSTANDING ALSO. WRITTEN IN PRISON, 1662. PUBLISHED, 1663. "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought:--the Spirit--helpeth our infirmities" (Rom 8:26). ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. There is no subject of more solemn importance to human happiness than prayer. It is the only medium of intercourse with heaven. "It is …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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